Oil & Water don't mix

[gammonnetti]

I'm not proud after 7 years of owning a Porsche to have to admit to having put 100ml of oil into my water. It's no excuse but I was rushing to the local shops when I decided to quickly top up my oil by emptying the last 100ml of oil I had in the original bottle supplied by Porsche when I bought my 987 new. Later that day I went to add a little more oil from a new bottle and immediately realised what I had done. I contacted Porsche who quoted me £190 inc Vat to flush the system and refill with coolant, so I trailered my car to the dealership which incidentally was my first visit as I have just moved to this part of the country.
When collected the car a very pleasant gentleman in Customer Service slid my bill across the desk and yes, it was a whopping £1,360.00. So let battle commence! Ten minutes later having agreed to pay their revised bill of £600.00 I left numb and somewhat bemused.
This brings me to my question. When I got home I studied the revised bill and found that they had flushed the system twice before refilling with antifreeze/water mix. Fine, but the bill for the antifreeze was £ 136.22 with rad cleaner on top. Is this not excessive as it would seem that they have used around 12ltrs of antifreeze. I would have assumed that they would not use antifreeze each time they flushed the engine. Can anyone enlighten me on this procedure and as to whether this is what I should expect as I'd rather not question the bill further without a greater understanding of the situation?
Please, no comments about my stupidity, my wife has already told everyone!

 

[SamanthaHewit]

Are u bonkers?!?!?!

If i was quoted £190 then i wouldnt pay a penny more... Its their stupid fault that they ended up flushing it twice. They shouldve done it right the first time!

 

[Buddy]

Your Boxster cooling system has a capacity of 22.4 Litres and uses Antifreeze at a 50:50 ratio, so yes they would bill for 12 litres, of course being Porsche Antifreeze it is expensive and it had to be flushed not just drained as you never get the complete amount of coolant out, some is always left behind. But 100ml in over 22 Litres I'd think wouldn't be that great a contamination and shouldn't be detrimental although it will cause an indication of oil in the water. Usually considered a sign of blown head gasket and so you do want it out of the system. Incidentally you could probably, if you didn't start it, have syphoned it out of the header tank leaving only the slightest amount and then topped up with water to overflow, oil floats.

Having said that, it doesn't take long to drain, flush through with water and drain, fill with water and warm up, check for signs of oil, then drain and refill with water and antifreeze, warm up the engine and bleed the air out finishing with topping up the level. 2-3 hours and it doesn't need their top technician. But they quoted you £190 probably their standard charge for a drain and refill at max on top of that say 1 hours charge, nothing like the £600 paid and definitely not £1,360 plus as a new customer they ought to have given some goodwill and abided to the original quote as you may now be driving further to another OPC.[]

 

[Glyn]

Dont understand why the car was traillered to the OPC, that amount of oil in the water would not have caused any damage and you could have drained the system at your leisure whenever you felt the urge to do so, indeed you could have left it for ever.

As you know you put oil in the water system you would expect to see some of that oil in the header tank but you would know that contamination was simply down to your mistake, To someone inspecting the car seeing oil in the water would raise the alarm of an oil cooler fault or the head gasket problem and that contamination would have been used to diagnose an issue - wrongly in this case so it would be something you would need to do in the future, however there was no need to panic about this.

Removing the hose at the thermostat - an easy job, would have drained most of the system, a refill with plain water, run the engine and repeat the process a couple of times would have flushed it out, then a refill with anti freeze and a bleed and the job would have been done for just the cost of the anti freeze.
To have made the mistake was a bit silly - to trailer it and have OPC flush it was the biggest mistake you made, at least you will not make that mistake again

 

[gammonnetti]

Thanks for all the helpful postings and the reply that came directly to my email address, not sure how that can happen!
Firstly I didn't have a written quote so I have no contract with the OPC and flushing the system twice would be quite normal. It's more to do with the 7 hours they say they spent on it.
I trailed the car on the advise of the OPC which as it happens was not a problem as I have a car transporter and Discovery to do the job. I didn't really question this as I had read on a number of sites that the oil can damage rubber piping when the engine gets hot.
On your information I now don't feel so bad about the amount they have charged for the antifreeze but may still look to see if there is another OPC within a reasonable distance.

Stewart